What if 34 GOP Senators Stubbornly Refuse to Convict Bush/Cheney of Impeachable Offenses?

[Time for change]

One of the biggest reasons given for not attempting to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney is that there are not enough votes in the Senate to convict them – and look how the GOP attempt to impeach Clinton backfired in 1998, and how the GOP had to pay for that failed attempt in the mid-term elections.

There are several major problems with that analogy. First of all, when a competent prosecutor considers prosecuting a person for a serious crime, the first issue that is considered is whether or not the evidence exists for a successful prosecution – not whether or not the votes exist. If the evidence exists, then it is the responsibility of the prosecutor to find a way to get the votes. That is done by gathering the evidence and presenting it to the jury in a persuasive manner. Usually jury members will be more likely to convict after they’ve had the evidence presented to them.

The American people expressed their disgust with the failed attempt to remove Bill Clinton from office NOT because the attempt was unsuccessful, but because it was ill advised and irresponsible. The charges against Clinton had nothing to do with his performance in office. And furthermore, a good majority of the American people approved of his performance in office and wanted him to remain in office. None of those things can be remotely said about George Bush and Dick Cheney.


A brief summary of the grounds for impeaching Bush and Cheney

The most frequently advocated reasons for impeaching Bush and Cheney are: 1) Lying our country into war with Iraq; 2) Abuse and torture of our prisoners, against international law and the laws of our country; and 3) Warrantless spying on Americans.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has described the basis for those charges in detail, in their book, “Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush”; and Rep. John Conyers also describes the basis for those charges in his report, “The Constitution in Crisis – The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Cover-ups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance”.

The amount of evidence to support each of those charges is overwhelming. George Bush himself has publicly admitted his illegal wiretapping activities dozens of times – though he is always careful to accompany those admissions with a lame excuse for willfully ignoring the laws of his country that he swore to uphold. Likewise, the evidence that George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to the American people and to Congress in order to justify and provide legal cover for their Iraq War, is overwhelming. John Conyers, following his detailed investigation, summed up that evidence as follows:

The report finds there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people … The Report concludes that a number of these actions amount to prima facie evidence that federal criminal laws have been violated… The Report also concludes that these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable conduct.

The abuses and torture of our prisoners have been frequent and abundantly documented. Regarding those abuses, the U.S. Supreme Court so much as branded George W. Bush a ‘war criminal’ for violating the Geneva Convention, in their Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, as explained by Vyan. In that decision Justice Stevens, speaking for the majority, explained that the petitioner Hamdan was “entitled to the full protection of the Geneva Convention”, and that the “military commission convened to try him was established in violation of both the UCMJ and Common Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention”. Justice Kennedy further elaborated on the Geneva Convention that the USSC determined the Bush administration to have violated:

The provision is part of a treaty the United States has ratified and thus accepted as binding law… moreover, violations of Common Article 3 are considered “war crimes,” punishable as federal offenses…

There are plenty other grounds for impeachment as well, including: the frequent illegal punishment of whistle blowers as demonstrated in the Valerie Plame scandal; the severe negligence demonstrated in the response to Hurricane Katrina; the numerous efforts to suppress evidence of global warming; and the signing of over 800 “signing statements” expressing George Bush’s intentions to ignore the laws of our country.


Why Bush and Cheney must be impeached

Elizabeth Holzman, a prime player in holding Richard Nixon accountable for his much lesser crimes, explains why Congress must act to impeach and remove Bush and Cheney from office in a recent article in The Nation, “Impeachment: The Case in Favor”. In a nutshell, the gist of her argument is that failure to do so would set a precedent that condones the wholesale violation of our Constitution, and that failure would also provide the opportunity for the Bush administration to do vast damage to our country in its remaining two years in office, including embroiling us in another war. After summarizing the grounds for impeachment and explaining why it is feasible, Holzman concludes by explaining:

Our country's Founders provided the power of impeachment to prevent the subversion of the Constitution. President Bush has subverted and defied the Constitution in many ways. His defiance and his subversion continue.

Failure to impeach Bush would condone his actions. It would allow him to assume he can simply continue to violate the laws on wiretapping and torture and violate other laws as well without fear of punishment. He could keep the Iraq War going or expand it even further than he just has on the basis of more lies, deceptions and exaggerations… Worse still, if Congress fails to act, Bush might be emboldened to believe he may start another war, perhaps against Iran, again on the basis of lies, deceptions and exaggerations.

There is no remedy short of impeachment to protect us from this President, whose ability to cause damage in the next two years is enormous. If we do not act against Bush, we send a terrible message of impunity to him and to future Presidents and mark a clear path to despotism and tyranny. Succeeding generations of Americans will never forgive us for lacking the nerve to protect our democracy.

What is more important than impeachment?

Another reason frequently given for not moving to impeach Bush and Cheney is that Congress has more important things to do. But what is more important that preventing another war or holding accountable for the wholesale violation of our Constitution those sworn to preserve and protect it?

But let’s suppose for a moment that the laws that Congress intends to pass in the remaining two years of the Bush/Cheney administration are more important that impeaching Bush ando Cheney. How is Congress going to get those laws past a Bush veto? What would cause George Bush to sign into law legislation that helps the majority of American citizens at the expense of his wealthy cronies? I can’t think of much that would cause him to do that. But with the threat of impeachment hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, perhaps he would think twice before vetoing legislation that was highly popular with the American people, thereby sending his approval ratings further south and making him even more vulnerable to impeachment than he currently is.


When the majority of Americans want impeachment how do you spin a poll to say otherwise?

It is also frequently claimed by those who are against impeachment that the American people are not ready for it. But that claim is highly questionable. As Holtzman explains in her article:

Despite scant attention from the mainstream media, since last year impeachment has won a wide audience. Amid a flurry of blogs, books and articles, a national grassroots movement has sprung up. In early December seventy-five pro-impeachment rallies were held around the country and pro-impeachment efforts are planned for Congressional districts across America… Most Americans understand the gravity of President Bush’s constitutional misconduct. Public anger at Bush has been mounting. On November 7 voters swept away Republican control of the House and Senate. The President's poll numbers continue to drop.

Holzman also refers in her article to a Newsweek poll taken just before the 2006 November elections, which showed 51% of Americans in favor of impeachment. Gee, that hasn’t received much coverage by our corporate news media, has it? Maybe that has something to do with the way that Newsweek itself spun that poll to make it appear inconsequential. What does one do when one conducts a poll and doesn’t want to publicize the results, and yet feels obligated to publish them? Here’s how Newsweek handled that problem:

… but only 28 percent of all Americans say it (impeachment) should be (a top priority), 23 percent say it should be a lower priority and nearly half, 44 percent, say it should not be done.

My gosh, how unimpressive. What anemic numbers – 28%, 23%. Compare those numbers to the whopping 44% who don’t want Bush to be impeached, and it’s no wonder that Congress is reluctant to proceed with impeachment. And that’s before the public has had the benefit of watching an impeachment trial.


Give them the rope they need to hang themselves with

Let’s get back to the question of whether enough Republican Senators can be found to convict Bush and Cheney of impeachable offenses if presented with articles of impeachment by the House of Representatives. It has been pointed out that the current crop of Senate Republicans are largely hard core conservatives who don’t give a damn about our Constitution or the Bush/Cheney administration’s repeated violations of it. That is a fair assessment. So why bother even trying?

Aside from the fact that it is the right thing to do, and that failing to even try to impeach Bush and Cheney would condone their numerous criminal violations of our Constitution, there are a couple of other good reasons to proceed with impeachment.

As conservative and conscienceless as most of our Republican Senators are, most of them want to remain in the Senate. When the American public is presented over a period of several weeks or months with the accumulated evidence of high crimes committed by the Bush/Cheney administration, and as their outrage grows and Bush’s poll numbers plummet to new lows, I suspect that a number of Republican Senators will opt for self-preservation at the expense of loyalty to a sinking presidential administration.

But if they don’t, at least we will have one big consolation: Just imagine what our new Senate will look like in 2009.